Visitors to the fashion trade fair can once again enjoy free entry to the Špilberk castle

Brno City Museum continues to cooperate with the BVV Brno Exhibition Centre. This year, visitors to the 44th STYL & Kabo will again have a unique opportunity to visit the Špilberk castle free of charge on 24-26 August 2014, namely the famous Casemates and an exhibition dedicated to architecture in Brno between 1919 to 1939, called the For A New Brno.

When you say Špilberk castle, the majority of Brno citizens think of the casemates. They are a building curiosity, built in 1742 during the final phase of conversion of the castle into a Baroque fortress. They were originally intended to serve as a refuge for the garrison in case of an artillery attack, there were ovens to bake bread for up to five thousand people, they were provided with skylights allowing light and air to reach the furnace with chimneys and a stove. The casemates could hide up to 1200 men. During the reign of Maria Theresa, however, they were mainly used to store military supplies. It was only in 1783, when Emperor Joseph II. decided to convert the casemates into a prison for the worst and most dangerous criminals. People sentenced to life imprisonment were for example chained in wooden cubicles. Prisoners’ conditions improved over time and other castle rooms than the casemates gradually began to be used for prison purposes. The prison at Špilberk was abolished in 1855 and already in 1880, i.e. at a time when the castle served as barracks, the casemates were opened to the public. Today, visitors can see a sample group cell, above mentioned wooden cells or the prison kitchen.

The second part of the castle, which opens to the trade fair visitors for free, is a permanent exhibition titled For A New Brno. This exhibition presents plans, studies, photographs, models, furniture, prints and film documents of modern urbanism, architecture and contemporary interiors of Brno and the atmosphere in 1919-1939. This was a period when a building boom occurred Brno, where the seats of central administrative offices of the new republic were built, but also political, scientific, cultural and educational institutions. With an influx of new residents, housing construction also increased. A number of important architects and designers worked in Brno in this period: Bohuslav Fuchs, Ernst Wiesner, Otto Eisler, Josef Kranz, Jiří Kroha and more. The high standard of residential culture in Brno was then provided by reputable furniture companies, such as Spojené uměleckoprůmyslové závody, whose UP brand has become synonymous with quality and good taste.

"We want to offer the best to the trade fair visitors. The casemates are traditionally the most popular part of the castle, just in the first half of 2014, they were visited by over 23 thousand people. The second option was logical; architecture is closely related with design, style and fashion, so we purposely chose the exhibition with Brno architecture for the Fashion Fair visitors," said Pavel Ciprian, director of the Brno City Museum about the cooperation with the Brno Exhibition Centre.

Contact:  Martina Šmídtová, PR manager, smidtova@spilberk.cz, tel.: 602 584 119